Fiber-needle cutter



1. BRANDSTET'TER.

FIBER NEEDLE CUTTER. APPLICATION FILED APR. 1. 1920.

11,362,533, V I Patented Dec. 14, 1920.

lI/I/ UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE- J OSEF BRANDSTETTER, OF CHICAGO, ILLINOIS.

FIBER-NEEDLE CUTTER.

Applicationfiled April 1, 1920. Serial No. 370,501.

To all whom it may concern Be it known that I, J osnr BRnNDsrn'r'rEn, citizen of the United States, residing at Chicago, in the county of Cook and State of Illinois, have invented certain new and'use ful Improvements in Fiber-Needle Cutters,

and I do hereby declare the following to be a full, clear, and exact description of the in- .vention, such as will enable others skilled in to cutting implements and aims to provide a cheaply constructed and easily manipulated appliance for cutting a predetermined length off the end of a rod, thus meeting the. requirements for repointing the socalled fiber needles as commonly used in connection with phonographs. Such needles are commonly triangular in cross-section and of a material which loses its satisfactory point after playing one or two records, so that the needle then needs to be repointed. For this purpose, only a thin slice needs to be sheared off the end of the needleif this is done at the proper angle and without splintering. Heretofore such a repointing of the needles has been effected by means of rather complicated appliances including inserted knife blades and necessarily commanding rather hi h, prices.

Fiewed in this aspect, my invention aims to provide an effective device-which will be exceedingly simple in construction and which can be made chiefly by punch-press operations, thereby implying a low cost; which will afford a needle guideof adequate length without requiring extra parts for this purpose; which will readily gage the amount of the cut to the minimum required in ordinary practice, thereby avoiding a wasting of the needle; which will have the shear-guiding surface so arranged that thls can be readily and cheaply assembled without employing high priced labor. Still further and more detailed objects will appear from the following specification and from the accompanying drawings in which- Figure 1 is an elevation of a fiber needle cutter embodying my invention.

Fig. 2 is a sideelevation of the same, taken from the bottom of Fig. 1.

Fig. 3 is an enlarged section taken along the correspondingly numbered line of Fig. 1.

Fig. 4 is an enlarged top View ofthe same appliance, taken from the right hand end of Fig. 1.

' Fig. 5 is a fragmentary section taken Iai longg3 the correspondingly numbered line of Fig. 6 is a fragmentary'section, similar to the right-hand portion of Fig. 3, but showing a somewhat different construction of the needle-guiding formations.

Fig. 7 isa section taken through Fig. 6 along the line 7-7, with the needle omitted to show the shape of the perforation.

F 1g. 8 ma fragmentary enlarged elevation of the shearing jaws.

In the illustrated embodiment, the needle cutter has as its two main parts a pair of levers 1 and 2 pivoted flatwise upon each other through a pivot screw S, each of these levers having atits longer end a handle 4,

whereby the levers may be manipulated after the manner of ordinary scissors. The. rear lever 1 has its upper or shorter arm equipped with a perforation 5 of triangular crosssection, which perforationdesirably has its axis dlsposed in the same plane with the axis of the pivot screw 3 but oblique to the latter, and which perforation is of such a size as readily to guide an ordinary fiber needle 6 when inserted through the perforationfrom the rear of the appliance.

The companionor forward lever 2 has its shorter arm equipped with a substantially V-shaped recess directed approximately toward the axis of the pivot screw, thereby dividing this shorter arm into two forks, of which one fork 7 affords a stop or gage for the needle while the other fork 8 is beveled toa cutting edge 9. toact as the shear or cutter proper of the appliance. For this purpose, the gage or stop 7 has its rear face disposed out of the plane of the forward surface of the perforated portion 10 of thecompanion lever, while the cutting edge 9 of the shearing blade rides on this same surface. Consequently, the amount sheared off the end of the needle at each operation of the cutter will correspond to the spacin between the adjacent faces of the parts and 10 as shown-in Fig. 3,'and by forming the perforation 5 at thev proper angle with respect to the plane in which-the shearing blade moves,I secure the proper angle for the tip of the repointed needle. 7

To determine this angle accurately without" employing an undesirable thickness of metal for the rear lever and without employing complicated guide constructions, I desirably form the blank for the rear lever with an extension 11 on this shorter arm 10, which extension is then recurved behind the part 10 of this arm and is equipped with a perforation 12 alining with the previously described perforation 5. By suitably spacing the parts 10 and 11 from each other, I

can readily provide the equivalent of an ance at its juncture with the pivoting and perforated portion 10 of the same lever, as shown in Fig. 3, thereby allowing the said surface to be ground flat on an ordinary lap wheel.

To reducethe friction between the pivoted levers and to secure the desired spacing between the gage 7 and the perforated guide arm, I desirably provide the forward lever with a pair of rearwardly directed nubs 13 of a height corresponding to this desired spacinggand then bend. the shearing blade backward so that its cutting edge will be in the same plane with the tips of the two nubs. By so doing, I provide a threepoint support which affords a positive guide for maintaining the cutting blade in its desired plane contiguous to this forward surface of the perforated arm 10 without involving undue friction. I may also offset the stop arm 7 from the pivot portion of the lever from which this arm is formed, after the manner of Fig. 3 to afford at least a part of the desired spacing between this arm and the perforation lever portion which guides the needle. I also locate the perforation 5 so with respect to the V-shaped recess in the forward arm that the cutting blade will'engage the fiber needle long before the stop 7 moves out of alinement with the said perforation; or in other words, so that the needle guiding perforations are never simultaneously out of alinement with both the stop arm 7 and the cutting blade.

To permit the opening movement of the levers, I desirably provide a pin 14 projecting forwardly from the portion 10 of the rear lever and engaging the back of the blade 8, as shown in Fig. 8, this pin being riveted in position after the portion 1.0 has been properly surfaced. I also provide the two levers with offsets adjacent to their handles, thereby bringing these handles substantially into a common plane as shown in Fig. 2, so that they will engage each other to limit the closing or cutting movement of the appliance.

It will be obvious from the above that the appliance of my invention is exceedingly simple, since it comprises only four parts, namely the two levers, the pivot screw (which is desirably staked over to lock it against unscrewing) and the stop pin 14%. By employing a suitable grade of steel for the two levers I can readily secure the desired shearing action without using any inserted blade, so that by this means and by the general simplification of the structure as compared with the devices heretofore used, I am able to greatly reduce the cost. Furthermore, it will be obvious that the manufacture of my appliance consists chiefly of punch press operations, which also helps to reduce the cost. To facilitate both the rearward bending and the sharpening of the cutting blade, I desirably separate this entirely from the stop arm 7 by a slot shown in Fig. 8), so that this blade can be bent out of the plane of the blank from which it is formed and so that it can be ground for its entire length without touching the stop arm. I

However, while I have heretofore described my invention in a highly desirable embodiment,'I do not wish to be limited to the use of my cutting appliance for this particular purpose, nor to the details of the construction and arrangement thus disclosed, it being obvious that the same might be modified in many ways without departing from the spirit of my invention. For ex? ample, instead of punching the perforations 5 and 12 at an angle to the shearing surface, whereby the walls of these perforations form parts of surfaces arranged in triangular prismatic formation, I may accomplish the same purpose by perforating the parts 10 and 11 at right angles to-their faces and suitably offsetting the perforations from each other. For example, Figs. 6 and 7 show a construction in which the parts 10 and 11 have identical, but non-alining, perforations of such a'shape as to cooperate in forming a guide tube having an effectively triangular prismatic formation to correspond to the cross-section of a standard fiber needle. I

I claim as my invention:

l. A cutting device comprising a pair of handled levers pivoted to each other, one thereof having a flat and perforated surface directed toward theother, the last named lever having a shearing blade and a pair of knob-like projections all riding on thesaid surface to define the plane in whichthe cutting edge of the blade moves.

2. A cutting device including a pair of pivoted levers one having a V-shaped recess extending through one end to form a stop and shearing edge, and the other lever being bent downwardly and inwardly at one end to form a pair of spaced parts each perforated to receive the object to be cut and both underlying the shearing edge.

3. A cutting device including a pair of pivoted members, one thereof having a shearing edge and the other having a portion adjacent said edge recurved upon itself to form a pair of spaced parts each perforated to receive the object to be cut and both underlying the shearing edge.

4. In a cutting device a pair of pivoted members one spaced above the other, knoblike parts borne by one member and engaging the other and a shearing edge extending at an angle from the said member and engaging the said other member, said shearing edge and knob-like parts all acting to hold said members spaced.

5. A cutting device including a pair of superposed pivoted members each having a handle on one end, one member having a shearing edge rigidly connected thereto at its opposite end and the other member having its opposite end recurved upon itself to form a pair of spaced parts, each of said parts being perforated to receive the object to be cut and both underlying the shearing edge.

6. A cutting device including a pair of pivoted levers one having a V-shaped recess extending through one end to form a fork,

7 one arm of the latter providing a stop and movement of the levers and to be disengaged therefrom upon movement of the levers during cutting.

'7. A cutting device including a pair of pivoted members one having a shearing edge and the other having an end adjacent said edge recurved to form a pair of spaced parts each perforated to receive the object to be cut and both underlying the shearing edge, said perforations alining in a plane oblique to the pivotal axis of the members so as to obtain oblique cutting.

8. A cutting device including a pair of pivoted levers one having a V-shaped recess extending through one end to form a stop and shearing edge, and the other lever being recurved at one end to form a pair of spaced parts each perforated to receive the object to be cut and both underlying the shearing edge, said V-shaped recess being disposed so that the stop will not clear the perforation of the other lever until after the shearing edge has moved for an appreciable distance across the said perforation.

Signed at Chicago, Illinois, March 29th, 1920.

J OSEF BRANDSTETTER. 

